TRA.

O, my pardon?

ANTONY.

Now I must
To the young man send humble treaties, dodge
And palter in the shifts of lowness; who
With half the bulk o' the world play'd as I pleas'd,
Making and marring fortunes. You did know
How much you were my conqueror; and that
My sword, made weak by my affection, would
Obey it on all cause.

CLEOPATRA.

O pardon, pardon!

ANTONY.

Fall not a tear, I say; one of them rates
All that is won and lost. Give me a kiss;
Even this repays me.

It is perfectly in keeping with the individual character, that
Cleopatra, alike destitute of moral strength and physical courage,
should cower terrified and subdued before the masculine spirit of her
lover, when once she has fairly roused it. Thus Tasso's Armida, half
siren, half sorceress, in the moment of strong feeling, forgets her
incantations, and has recourse to persuasion, to prayers, and to tears.

Lascia gl' incanti, e vuol provar se vaga
E supplice belta sia miglior maga.

Though the poet afterwards gives us to understand that even in this
relinquishment of art there was a more refined artifice.

Nella doglia amara
Gia tutte non oblia l' arti e le frodi.

And something like this inspires the conduct of Cleopatra towards Antony
in his fallen fortunes. The reader should refer to that fine scene,
where Antony surprises Thyreus kissing her hand, "that kingly seal and
plighter of high hearts," and rages like a thousand hurricanes.

The character of Mark Antony, as delineated by Shakspeare, reminds me of
the Farnese Hercules. There is an ostentatious display of power, an
exaggerated grandeur, a colossal effect in the whole conception,
sustained throughout in the pomp of the language, which seems, as it
flows along, to resound with the clang of arms and the music of the
revel. The coarseness and violence of the historic portrait are a little
kept down; but every word which Antony utters is characteristic of the
arrogant but magnanimous Roman, who "with half the bulk o' the world
played as he pleased," and was himself the sport of a host of mad (and
bad) passions, and the slave of a woman.

History is followed closely in all the details of the catastrophe, and
there is something wonderfully grand in the hurried march of events
towards the conclusion. As disasters hem her r